Pints With Aquinas

If you could sit down with St. Thomas Aquinas over a pint of beer and ask him any one question, what would it be? Every episode of Pints With Aquinas revolves around a question, a question that St. Thomas addresses in his most famous work, The Summa Theologica. So get your geek on, pull up a bar stool, and grab a cold one. Here we go!

It is written (Ezekiel 36:25): "I will pour upon you clean water, and you shall be cleansed from all your filthiness."

I answer that, As the Apostle says (Romans 6:3), "all we, who are baptized in Christ Jesus, are baptized in His death." And further on he concludes (Romans 6:11): "So do you also reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Hence it is clear that by Baptism man dies unto the oldness of sin, and begins to live unto the newness of grace. But every sin belongs to the primitive oldness. Consequently every sin is taken away by Baptism.

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the Passion of Christ is communicated to every baptized person, so that he is healed just as if he himself had suffered and died. Now Christ's Passion . . . is a sufficient satisfaction for all the sins of all men. Consequently he who is baptized, is freed from the debt of all punishment due to him for his sins, just as if he himself had offered sufficient satisfaction for all his sins.

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As Augustine says in the book on Infant Baptism (De Pecc. Merit. et Remiss. i) "the effect of Baptism is that the baptized are incorporated in Christ as His members." Now the fulness of grace and virtues flows from Christ theHead to all His members, according to John 1:16: "Of His fulness we all have received." Hence it is clear that man receives grace and virtues in Baptism.

ST III, Q. 69, A. 1; 2; 4.

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Learn more by reading my article on baptism - http://mattfradd.com/did-st-paul-downplay-baptism/

Simply put, thank you so much for this. I'm young and dumb... but I'm starting now to figure out what really is important and asking the big questions. And I'm also discovering how incredibly easy it is to fall back into the media, and the numerous things that we take pleasure in at the cost of our souls. But thanks for making a place where I can go to quietly figure things out again, figure out which direction I've been running in at full speed.
You're helping.
God bless